Troubled Times Have Come
I spent the better part of today driving around my hometown of Saginaw, Michigan. Since I headed off to The LTS two years ago, I really have not been back long enough to see how it had changed in that time, and when I had been back, I was usually tied up with family duties. So I just took the day to drive around to see the sights.
Now Saginaw has been hard struck by the crash of the automobile industry in the 80's and has never recovered. Unemployment is somewhere in the 20% area and that only counts those who still can still collect benefits. When I was growing up in the late 60's and through the 70's, there were about a dozen plants, all running three shifts a day and sometimes working on weekends. Now there are a couple of plants working single shifts. I was stunned by how many plants no longer exist. They are not just vacant, they aren't there. They've been bulldozed, rubble removed and are now green areas surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire.
I drove by my childhood home. The last time I did this, which was last summer, the house had all of the siding pulled off and was vacant. It has new siding and is available to be rented. But the houses next to it, and next to that one, are stripped and vacant. My elementary school was knocked down before I left and a new version of it was built on the playground where I played my first organized sports and got in my first fight. My junior high was just closed, and the house of my first girlfriend, where I had my first kiss has been torn down. The recreation center where I'd go to play basketball is gone. It became easier to find places from my childhood memories that are still there than to keep track of those that are no longer there. While we may be in an economic recession, my hometown is in a state of depression.
I wanted to take this tour, because I do not know when I will be able to do so again. Given the reports of what a blur the next two years of seminary are from those who have survived it, I really don't know when I will be able to visit America's High Five. Is there hope for mid-Michigan? I hope so. But I don't know who or how.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - My Hometown (live)
Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown
Now Saginaw has been hard struck by the crash of the automobile industry in the 80's and has never recovered. Unemployment is somewhere in the 20% area and that only counts those who still can still collect benefits. When I was growing up in the late 60's and through the 70's, there were about a dozen plants, all running three shifts a day and sometimes working on weekends. Now there are a couple of plants working single shifts. I was stunned by how many plants no longer exist. They are not just vacant, they aren't there. They've been bulldozed, rubble removed and are now green areas surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire.
I drove by my childhood home. The last time I did this, which was last summer, the house had all of the siding pulled off and was vacant. It has new siding and is available to be rented. But the houses next to it, and next to that one, are stripped and vacant. My elementary school was knocked down before I left and a new version of it was built on the playground where I played my first organized sports and got in my first fight. My junior high was just closed, and the house of my first girlfriend, where I had my first kiss has been torn down. The recreation center where I'd go to play basketball is gone. It became easier to find places from my childhood memories that are still there than to keep track of those that are no longer there. While we may be in an economic recession, my hometown is in a state of depression.
I wanted to take this tour, because I do not know when I will be able to do so again. Given the reports of what a blur the next two years of seminary are from those who have survived it, I really don't know when I will be able to visit America's High Five. Is there hope for mid-Michigan? I hope so. But I don't know who or how.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - My Hometown (live)
Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown
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